A Deadly Bake-off (Preview)

Chapter One

“Are you dying? I’m dying,” Arnold declared to no one in particular, waltzing by Poppy with a massive grin on his face. “Dying of excitement!” He took a handful of cheese from a container at the pizza prep station where Poppy was working and sprinkled an extra handful all over the pizza she was preparing. “Give the man some extra cheese, girl!” he said.

The cause for Arnold’s excitement was a bake-off that was happening live in the little town of Plumsville. Both Poppy and Arnold were massive fans of the food network on television. The two of them had been watching the shows together since they’d attended high school. Their favorite show, by far, was a show called ‘Botched Bakeries.’ The star of the show was a chef who specialized in making pastries. Galvin Sandy was Poppy’s idol, the whole reason behind her choice to attend the pastry course at her local college. Now, Galvin was traveling to the college to compete in a pastry bake-off against another critically acclaimed French chef named Pierre Devereux.

Poppy smacked Arnold’s hand away before he had a chance to add any more cheese to the already cheese-laden pizza. “Stop, Arnie! Do you want to give the man a heart attack?” He shrugged and stuffed the handful of cheese in his mouth. He then replied inaudibly, the mound of cheese obstructing his words. “I have no idea what you just said,” Poppy remarked to him. Arnold swallowed the bits of cheese, then reached for his glass of soda resting on the rack by the pizza oven and took a dainty sip.

“I said, I saw the lovely gentleman who placed the order for that pizza. He is fit as a fiddle. In fact, I bet he uses that gym by the shipyard. Perhaps I should get a gym membership.”

“That’s the gym I go to,” Poppy remarked.

“Oh, really? Maybe I should join you in a Pilates class and you can introduce me to Mr. Beefcake pizza man,” Arnold said. “What do you think,” he continued, posing suggestively with his rear out, “would I look good in spandex?”

“Nobody looks good in spandex,” Poppy stated, matter-of-factly.

“That’s because you haven’t seen me in spandex.” Arnold slipped a wide paddle beneath the pizza emerging from the oven on a conveyer belt. “Here, kid, try cutting this,” he said to a newbie freckle-faced kid who’d only just started working that week. The kid stared at the pizza with a stupefied expression, pizza cutter in hand. Arnold groaned. “Here, let me show you.” He took the cutter and swiftly slid it through the pie, resulting in twelve even triangles. “I wonder where Debbie got this one from,” he whispered to Poppy. Poppy grinned.

Debbie Desilva was the manager of the Rotisserie restaurant, where both Arnold and Poppy were stuck working. She was a thin woman with a nose far too big for her face, and a bob that bounced around her sunken cheeks every time she moved her head. She was bossy, cruel, and clearly didn’t care much for her staff. A number of the employees, including Arnold, would articulate their disapproval of her silly rules to her face. Poppy, on the other hand, wasn’t a fan of confrontation. She kept her head down and did as Debbie told her to, no matter how inane the manager’s requests were.

“Remember that time Debbie made me take off my pink bandana because it apparently ‘clashed’ with the restaurant’s interior?” Arnold said to Poppy. He took an empty container of pepperoni from her prep station and replaced it with a full one. “This restaurant doesn’t even have anything to clash with!” Arnold proclaimed. “Everything is boring and gray. I liked it better when it had the tacky wooden fish décor.”

Arnold certainly wasn’t wrong about the restaurant’s bland interior design. At one point, before Debbie had taken over as manager, the restaurant had displayed an obvious beach theme. Paintings of shipwrecks had covered the walls, and wooden sculptures of seagulls and fish sat on the shelves above the check-out table immediately visible to customers when they walked in. But Debbie had decided that the restaurant wasn’t modern enough. She’d changed everything, and not for the better. The sculptures, although a little tacky, were created by local artists. Having no regard for the talent involved in the décor, Debbie had chucked them in the dumpster. Poppy remembered the day when she and Arnold had gone digging through the hot stinking trash to recover the art pieces.

She brought up the memory to Arnold, who groaned dramatically. “I can’t believe you convinced me to go dumpster diving! That was seriously the grossest thing I’ve ever done in my life! I got diaper in my hair!”
Along with changing the look of the restaurant, Debbie had also changed its name. Once called ‘Beach House Pizza,’ the restaurant was now known as ‘Rotisserie.’

The new freckle-faced kid, who, until that point, had been quietly cutting pizza, suddenly spoke up. “Why is this place called Rotisserie if it doesn’t serve rotisserie chicken?”

“Excellent question… erm… what’s your name?” Arnold placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder. Compared to the youth’s short stature, Arnold’s tall, lanky figure appeared even taller and lankier.

“Todd,” the kid answered.

“Excellent question, Todd!” Arnold declared. “I’m sorry to say that no one really knows the answer to that.”

It was then that Debbie scuttled out from her office, where she typically lived, and bellowed, “Less talking and more working!” She scrutinized Poppy’s pizza, plucking a slice of mushroom from its surface. “These mushroom slices are far too large. Who chopped these mushrooms?” she demanded.

The kitchen fell silent. “Poppy?” Debbie raised one of her sharply manicured eyebrows. She had the most terrifying face of any woman Poppy had ever met. She looked as though she was the offspring of a dragon and one of those strange monkeys with the droopy noses.

“Um, I’m not sure who cut them,” Poppy responded honestly.

“Cut these mushrooms into smaller pieces,” she instructed, “then re-make the pizza. Honestly, who likes eating massive chunks of mushroom?”

“I do,” Arnold responded. Debbie’s evil eyes glared in Arnold’s direction. She then exited the kitchen, click-clacking around the dining room in her obnoxious heels.

“I thought you hated mushrooms?” Poppy said as she obediently julienned the mushrooms.

“I do hate them,” Arnold replied. “But I hate Debbie even more. Thank God it’s Friday! Am I right, Todd?” Arnold nudged the kid cutting the pizzas.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Todd answered, uncertainly.

“Galvin’s going to kick ass tomorrow!” Arnold exclaimed.

“Arnold!” Debbie shouted his name from the dining room pass-through. “Stop distracting Poppy! Switch places with Dave at the fryer. NOW!”
“Ugh! The fryer stinks!” Arnold whined and dragged himself to the opposite end of the kitchen where the fryer was located.

It was then that Poppy found herself in the company of the broody man known as Dave. Dave said very little. He possessed only one eyebrow and smelled as though he never bathed. He was incredibly well-built and had probably killed a handful of people. Arnold had once told Poppy that he had seen Dave aggressively dump a bucket of chicken wings into the fryer, causing himself to get splashed in the face with scorching hot fryer grease.

Poppy could hear Arnold’s voice in the back of her mind. “He didn’t even flinch!” It was no secret that Arnold despised working at the fryer, where hot grease constantly spat at him, leaving tiny white burns all over his hands and arms. Poppy knew it was wrong to find his discomfort amusing, but she couldn’t help but chuckle as she heard her friend’s girly squeaks of pain emanating from the far corner.

Both Arnold and Poppy had been misfits in high school, Poppy a chubby teenager and Arnold stringy and queer. They had become acquainted in drama class, which Poppy had only joined because her mother thought it would help her ‘come out of her shell.’ Arnold had always been loquacious and outspoken, whereas Poppy had always been more shy.

Poppy often recounted the story of when she’d told her mother about Arnold. Initially, her mother hadn’t approved of Poppy hanging around a boy, as she’d thought perhaps Arnold would take advantage of Poppy. Her fear had made sense, as Poppy’s father hadn’t been good to her and had left shortly after Poppy was born. As soon as Poppy introduced Arnold to her, however, her worries had quickly dissolved. This likely had something to do with the fact that Arnold had still been dressed as the female character he was assigned to in the skit they’d been rehearsing for drama class.

Other than Arnold, Poppy had never had a male influence in her life. Although she didn’t think Arnold particularly counted as a male influence. She often wondered if her lack of a father figure was partially responsible for the mess of a relationship she’d recently ended.

“Poppy, I need to speak with you.” Debbie emerged next to Poppy. Lost in her thoughts, Poppy was startled by her manager’s sudden appearance.
“Uh, okay,” she responded, following Debbie to her office. She felt her throat go dry as she sat across from the woman in the small space. Poppy swallowed in an attempt to moisten the back of her throat.

Whenever she became anxious, her throat would suddenly become a parched cavern, which made speaking difficult. Debbie must have noticed the container of mummified olives Poppy had left in the back of the refrigerator.Poppy prepared herself for what was probably going to be a rant about how spoiled food should be thrown out immediately, and how she could be responsible for other ingredients becoming contaminated and making customers ill.

Debbie cleared her throat in a condescending sort of way. She was the only person Poppy had ever met who could somehow manage to make her feel inadequate by simply clearing her throat. Debbie then flipped her perfectly straight bob and folded her hands neatly in front of her. “I need you to work a full day tomorrow,” she said in her nasally deep-throated tone.

Poppy’s heart sank. “But I requested that day off weeks in advance.”
Debbie raised her hand as though to stop some invisible force from getting near her. “This isn’t up for discussion,” she retorted.“You already took last Saturday off. You can’t expect me to give you every Saturday off and make everyone else work in your place. That’s just selfishness!”

“I was sick last Saturday!” Poppy protested.

Debbie smiled; her smile was so fake Poppy expected it to fall off her face and break into a million plastic pieces.“Of course you were,” she said, standing from her desk. She straightened her gray pencil skirt. It was clear to Poppy that Debbie believed Poppy had been pretending to be sick. Poppy made a mental note to take a picture of her vomit as proof the next time she found herself suffering. Who are you kidding? Debbie would dismiss the vomit as chunky canned soup, Poppy thought.
Debbie continued to speak as she squinted at her computer monitor. “Dave has requested Saturday off to get that unsightly creature living above his eyes fixed. You will take his place for the day.”
“You mean his eyebrow?” Poppy said. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Debbie wanted her to work all day Saturday… because Dave was getting his eyebrow waxed?

“Yes, of course I mean his eyebrow!” Debbie declared. “It’s about time he did something to that filthy thing! I swear, every time a customer walks into this restaurant and sees that hideous caterpillar brow of his, they probably think twice about ever coming back!”

Poppy highly doubted anyone had ever been turned away from the restaurant because of a bushy eyebrow. If anyone was to ruin a customer’s appetite, it was Debbie.

“Why don’t I just do Dave’s eyebrow?” Poppy offered. “I could do it in, like, fifteen minutes. It doesn’t have to take the whole day!” She knew she’d probably regret volunteering to pluck Dave’s greasy black brow later, but if it meant she could go to the bake-off, it would be worth it.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Debbie snickered. “Have you seen that man’s brow hair? The esthetician will need a weed whacker to get through that! Besides, Poppy, you can’t even cut a mushroom properly. Stop wasting my time and go on your break now.”

Debbie dismissed Poppy with an absent swoop of her hand as though Poppy was a fly to be swatted. “Don’t come back late!” she barked, as Poppy solemnly made her way to the door. “You punched back from your break five minutes late yesterday.” Before Poppy could leave, Debbie made one last snarky comment. “And you had better not think about skipping work tomorrow. If you don’t come in tomorrow, you can forget about ever coming back again!”

Poppy sighed. The threat left her feeling smaller than an amoeba, and amoebas were so small they could only be seen with a microscope. Her dry throat had decided that it was now going to constrict. “Okay,” Poppy said, almost too quietly to be heard.

Woebegone, she took her lunch―a meager portion of rice and vegetables―to the staff microwave. She could feel her eyes growing hot. Poppy exhaled slowly, doing her best to keep back the tears. The ticket she’d ordered for herself hadn’t been cheap. The bake-off was an exclusive event; only one hundred people were permitted entry. She’d reserved her spot months and months in advance. Now what was she to do? It was far too late to sell her ticket to someone else. Moreover, she wouldn’t be there to accompany Arnold.

Heavy from the devastating altercation with Debbie, Poppy sauntered over to an empty table by the restaurant’s entrance. She took a seat on the lightly padded wooden chair, which she didn’t find the least bit comfortable, and stared into her lunch container.

“God, this place was so much better when it had booths,” Arnold said, taking the seat across from Poppy. “Hey, girl, what’s wrong?” he asked, noticing her miserable demeanor. “You look like you just got smacked in the face.”

Arnold wasn’t exaggerating. Whenever Poppy was upset her face became flushed as though someone had just slapped her. “Debbie,” she answered.

“Go figure,” Arnold said. He went to take a bite of the personal pizza he’d created for himself. As usual, he’d loaded it with far too many toppings and was struggling to separate a piece without having the heaps of toppings slide off. Poppy failed to suppress her laughter as a clump of onions and pepperoni splattered all over Arnold’s plate. He swore, then pinched the cheesy bundle with his fingers and placed it in his mouth. “Waste not, want not,” he said after swallowing. “Now, tell me what that crusty witch said to you this time.”

“You’re really not going to like this.” Poppy stabbed a piece of softened broccoli in her stir fry, pretending it was Debbie. “Debbie is making me work tomorrow.” She looked up from her lunch, scared to see the expression on Arnold’s face. As expected, he did not look pleased.

“Girl… tell me you’re joking,” he said, his jaw slack. “Why? You booked that day off months ago!”
Poppy shook her head slowly. “I wish I was joking,” she said. “Apparently, Dave needs the entire day to get his mono-brow fixed.”

Arnold stood from his chair so abruptly that it scraped against the tiled floor, resulting in a sound that made Poppy grit her teeth. “What kind of balderdash is this?” He threw his hands up in the air. “I could sharpen those barbaric brows before Debbie had a chance to say, ‘Where’s the Parmesan?’”

Flustered, Arnold marched in front of the table in a frenzied fashion. As he did so, he occasionally unleashed a high-pitched sound of disgruntlement. “What else did that conniving little skank say?” Arnold asked.

Poppy shrugged. “She said I have to work tomorrow because I took last Saturday off.”
“That’s complete poppycock, I say!” Arnold blurted. “You were glued to the toilet that whole day. That’s not fair, sick days don’t count!” Arnold ceased his oscillating. He remained still with one hand propped atop his head. Poppy could see the wheels of his curious mind turning behind his eyes.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, unable to bear the uncertain silence of the moment. A somewhat devilish smile developed on Arnold’s face.

“Do you remember my brother, Barrie?” he said, returning to his seat.

“Yeah.” Barrie was Arnold’s identical twin brother. Although their appearances were the same, Barrie and Arnold had vastly different personalities. Unlike Arnold, Barrie enjoyed things like manual labor and getting dirt on his face. Arnold often joked that Barrie had enough testosterone for the both of them. Barrie worked as a construction worker and had once needed the day off to take his girlfriend on a special date he’d promised her. Being the good brother that Arnold was, he had agreed to cover for Barrie and go into work in his place. Thankfully, all Arnold had needed to do for the day was to hold a traffic sign. Ever since that day, Barrie had owed Arnold a favor.
Poppy smiled, shaking her head. “You’re not seriously thinking—”

“Oh, but I am!” Arnold leapt up from his seat, clicked his heels together, and pulled Poppy from her chair. “I’m going to take your shift for you,” he announced, winking. He hooked arms with her, forcing her to skip along with him to Debbie’s office.

“Oh, Debbie!” Arnold called, opposite to Debbie’s office door.

“What do you want, Arnold?” she responded grouchily. Arnold walked into the office, tugging Poppy along by his side. “What’s this I hear about you making Poppy work on Saturday?” he said.
Debbie scoffed. “Stay out of it, Arnold, it’s none of your business.”

“Well, I’d like to come into work in her place,” Arnold pronounced. He stood proudly―tall and slim, with his chest puffed out for effect.

Debbie glowered at him with the black slits that were her eyes. “Whatever!” she spat. “Just leave me alone and get back to work!”

Arnold raised his hands in a celebratory fashion the minute they stepped out of the office. “Woo-hoo!” he cried. “Guess who still gets to go to the bake-off?”

“Me!” Poppy wrapped her arms around Arnold’s torso and squeezed him as tightly as she could. “You’re the best!” she declared.

Arnold hiccupped. “Whoa, there, Pompadore!” he bellowed. “I think you’re going to squeeze the pizza right out of me!” He broke contact with Poppy, rushing into the staff room to grab his pack of cigarettes. Putting his fingers to his lips as he emerged, he grabbed Poppy’s wrist and trotted for the exit.

Chapter Two

It was an overcast day. The air was mild, but the wind was cold, almost as though the weather wasn’t sure what mood it was feeling.

“Are you sure Barrie’s going to be okay to cover for you?” Poppy asked as she watched Arnold concentrate on lighting his cigarette. Poppy wrinkled her nose as she began to smell the odor of the restaurant’s garbage dump traveling on the wind.

For anyone who smoked, the space behind the restaurant next to the dumpster was the designated smoking area. Arnold removed his phone from the back pocket of his pants and began probing the screen with the fingers of his right hand, while he used his left hand to smoke. Presumably, he was sending a text to his brother.

“God, I love being ambidextrous,” he said. He dramatically tapped his phone screen with the pad of his thumb to signify to Poppy that he’d sent the text. “Barrie’s always true to his word. He won’t disappoint.”
Poppy nodded. She took a deep breath of the fresh air. Although the air was tainted with the odor of garbage and smoke, Poppy still appreciated a brief escape from the stuffy atmosphere of the kitchen. She watched as a pair of seagulls hopped about the tarmac in front of a dumpster. One of the birds was carrying a soggy French fry in its beak, while the other squawked and snapped at it in an attempt to try and steal the fry away. Arnold followed her gaze, his cigarette poised between his fingers.

“You’re so much better than this place, Poppy,” he remarked, out of nowhere. Unsure of how to respond, Poppy kicked at a piece of gravel, bashfully. “You actually went to culinary school and got certified as a pastry chef, girl!” he continued. “You ought to dump this place like last week’s leftovers and open your own pastry shop.”

Poppy smiled and shrugged. She liked how much confidence Arnold had in her. It would be her dream to own a pastry shop, but, she had no idea how she would accomplish it. For starters, she didn’t have the money, or a location in mind where she could open up. She also didn’t have the confidence in herself that Arnold did. What if she put all her money into a business only to fail?

“I know you want to,” Arnold probed.

“I do,” Poppy affirmed. “I just need to save enough money, I guess.”

“You could call it Poppy’s Popping Pastries,” Arnold suggested.

“That’s a bit of a mouthful, don’t you think?”

Arnold shrugged, taking a final hit of his cigarette. “A bit of a mouthful has never bothered me.” He grinned cheekily.

“Yeah, okay. Wow.” Poppy laughed as she followed her friend back into the dining room of the restaurant. As they made their way back to the kitchen, they cleared their scarcely eaten food from the table.

Arnold paused before returning to the heat of the kitchen. “Also, if you open up your own pastry shop, you have to promise me you’ll let me be in charge of doing the interior decorating,” he said.

“I promise,” Poppy agreed.

With that, Arnold punched his card and strutted cheerily through the kitchen. “I’m back!” he sang, returning the mandatory Rotisserie cap to his head. “Did anyone miss me?”

“No!” Todd answered. He passed a rag over the stainless steel countertop.

Arnold gasped. “Todd, how could you!” He then caught sight of his reflection in the sheen of the countertop. “Ugh! This hat is so ugly!” he whined.

The remainder of the shift flew by as customers filled the restaurant. Both Arnold and Poppy were running back and forth from the walk-in fridge to the prep station to try and keep everything stocked while preparing pizzas and pastas. After a while, Arnold started delegating the ingredient fetching to Todd, who didn’t seem to mind the change in tasks. There was nothing more soul-wrenching than having to stand in one spot for hours doing the exact same job.

Poppy knew from first-hand experience. Everyone who started working at the Rotisserie began by learning the proper technique for cutting pizza. Of course, Poppy had started her job at Rotisserie to make money while she was in culinary school. But that was three years ago, and she was still working the same lousy job.

Arnold is right, she thought as she wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. I shouldn’t still be working here making minimum wage as a certified chef. It’s just pathetic! Poppy quickly sealed off her thoughts before they started leaking self deprecation. Once she got caught in that cycle, she would find herself spiraling downward until she was trapped in a dark place.

“Great news!” Arnold announced, interrupting Poppy’s moment of self-sabotage. “I just checked my phone, and Barrie is in!” His fist pumped the air triumphantly. “Tomorrow, we’re going to watch Galvin Sandy slay the judges with his tantalizing treats!”

Little did Arnold know the accuracy of his statement.

***

It was half past nine in the morning when Poppy pulled into the driveway of Arnold’s townhouse. She sent him a quick text to let him know she’d arrived. Arnold was unable to afford a car, and so Poppy had offered to drive the two of them to the college. Whenever they worked the same shift, Poppy would also drive him to and from the restaurant.
C’mon, Arnold! she thought anxiously. The time was now a quarter to ten. The first round of the bake-off was scheduled to start promptly at ten. This is no time to be doing a full face of makeup! She honked her car horn to sound her frustration to Arnold. Shortly after that, Arnold sprinted through the door of his house, carrying what appeared to be a pink shirt. He catapulted himself into the passenger’s seat. It was then that Poppy noticed the sparkle peeking out from underneath his acid-wash denim jacket.

“You got crafty last night, didn’tyou?” she said. Throwing the car into reverse, she plowed out of the driveway and sped down the town’s main street.

“Hell, yeah, I did!” Arnold replied. “Remember that iconic episode of Botched Bakery? You know, the one where Galvin finds the ringed donut with the hole missing?”

“Oh my God!” Poppy laughed. She knew exactly the moment to which Arnold was referring.

Galvin Sandy’s most renowned television program was a show called Botched Bakery, where he traveled to various failing bakeries to give the business owners some help saving their shops. On that show, Galvin was known for his one-liners—in particular, a one-liner that occurred during an episode where he found a cake ring donut that had been poorly formed and was missing the hole through the middle. When he’d discovered this reject of a donut, he’d held it up and exclaimed, “That’s not a donut! It’s a hamburger bun!”

Once at the college, Poppy followed the signs directing bake-off attendees to a specific section of the school parking lot. Before making it through the gate and into the lot, Arnold and Poppy turned in their tickets at a booth, each receiving a lanyard with an identification tag attached. “I’ve never felt so important in my life,” Arnold said, looping the I.D. badge around his neck. “Wait until you see the shirts I made,” he added. “I sewed on each individual sequin by hand. You’re welcome.”

“I’m excited!” Poppy declared. She chose a parking spot as close to a school entrance as she could get. After exiting her sedan, Arnold waved the shirt before her as though he was coaxing a bull with a flag.
“Voila!”

The smile that bloomed across Poppy’s face was so wide, she could feel her cheeks aching. Etched onto the blush pink cotton of the shirt was Galvin’s famous quote. The letters were bold and sparkled in the waning sunlight.

“That’s incredible!” Poppy exclaimed. She threw the shirt on over the tank top she was wearing beneath her cardigan. “It must have taken you all night to make these shirts.”

They entered the school through a side entrance and were relieved to find more signs directing guests toward the kitchen stadium. After three years, Poppy wasn’t sure she’d be able to remember where everything was located in the college.

“Yeah, it took a while,” Arnold replied. “But it’s not like I was going to be able to sleep anyway. I was too pumped.”

A pair of students wearing pristine white chef uniforms greeted Arnold and Poppy at the entrance to the kitchen stadium. The two girls directed them to a pair of seats available atop a grandstand bench that had been installed for the competition.The massive auditorium had been divided into two sections, with a walkway down the middle. At the elevated height, Poppy could see everything perfectly. Two sets of gleaming kitchen appliances and countertops stood opposite each other on the main stage. Cameramen were positioned behind a number of cameras surrounding the stage. Poppy couldn’t believe she was attending a bake-off that was being televised live. Bright lights illuminated the appliances, giving them a reflective quality similar to that of a mirror. Grand music played through speakers attached to the four upper corners of the room.

Next to Poppy, Arnold was vibrating with anticipation. “Oh my God! Oh my God! I’m so excited I think my heart is going to explode!”
Poppy chuckled. Arnold’s energy level never ceased to amaze her. Even when he was under the weather, he still managed to uphold a level of enthusiasm Poppy couldn’t obtain on her happiest days. As the lights surrounding the main staged dimmed and the buzz of the crowd diminished, Arnold’s spindly legs only became more animated. Poppy firmly gripped the area around his bony knee, before he managed to jitter the entire grandstands to the ground. “Sorry,” he whispered, “I think I need to meditate.”

“Or take a Valium!” Poppy retorted.

“I left them in my other purse,” Arnold responded jokingly.
It was then that a baritone voice boomed through the speakers. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the kitchen stadium here at Plumsville College!” A suave but geeky-looking man walked across the stage, a small microphone attached to the lapel of his tweed jacket. “My name is Edward Black, and I’ll be your emcee for today’s bake-off.”
Arnold exhaled sharply. “Edward is so beautiful!” he exclaimed under his breath.

“Today’s bake-off will be divided into three rounds,” Edward continued. “For each round, the contestants will have to provide the judges with one savory pastry meal and one dessert pastry, inspired by the three meals of the day. Our first round will be our breakfast round. So, without further ado, let’s meet our judges!”

Edward directed himself to the left side of the front room, where three people entered from a side door. Each of the well-dressed judges was introduced to the audience. They waved to the crowd before taking their places at a long wooden table in front of the stage.

“And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for!” Edward announced. “Everyone, put your hands together for our celebrity chefs, Galvin Sandy and Pierre Devereux!”

It was then that the chefs appeared. Only, they didn’t appear from the front, farthest away from the grandstands, as the judges had. Both Pierre Devereux, and Galvin Sandy, along with their sous-chefs, appeared at the back entrance, where Poppy and Arnold had entered. They walked single file down the middle aisle of the auditorium, waving and smiling to the audience. People leapt to their feet with applause. Arnold was, perhaps, the first to spring up, hands clapping so fast they were a blur. He leaned over to Poppy. “I heard a rumor that Galvin is dating his sous-chef.”

Poppy had never cared much for rumors and gossip; however, it did make sense that Galvin would be dating his sous-chef. Poppy had noticed how close the two of them seemed during a number of the bake-offs she’d seen on television. She watched Galvin take his place behind the left kitchen set-up on the stage.

In person, Galvin seemed smaller, somehow. Although, Poppy had noticed that he’d seemed to have lost weight in his more recent episodes of his shows. He also seemed to be growing a bit of a beard, which Poppy was not opposed to. On the opposite side of the stage, it was almost comical to see how much larger Pierre was compared to his sous-chef. Pierre looked like the stereotypical chef. He had a large gut, ponytail, and a jolly pink face. His sous-chef was a petite man with sharp features.

“Looks like Pierre eats both his food and his sous-chef’s food!” Arnold joked, and Poppy gave him a warning glance. Having been picked on for her weight in high school, she didn’t particularly appreciate jokes relating to people’s size. At the same time, she knew Arnold didn’t actually mean any harm. He just often spoke without thinking. Arnold mouthed an apology.

The crowd had now settled. Everyone was back in their seats, eager for the competition to begin. It was explained by Edward that each round would be judged on a series of different scores out of five. There was a score for technique, creativity, taste, and appearance. The first round was inspired by the first meal of the day: breakfast.

“Take your mark, chefs. Get ready. BAKE!” Immediately, both chefs began whispering back and forth between their sous-chefs. Displayed above the stage on the walls were massive screens, showing close ups of what the chefs were doing. Galvin had a marker and pad of paper in hand. He appeared to be writing a list of ingredients for his sous-chef to grab.
“And Nadine is off with the ingredients list toward the supply tables, which are fully stocked thanks to the work of the staff and students of the Plumsville culinary program,” Edward reported. Poppy watched as Galvin’s female sous-chef took off with a large basket to a series of tables lining the left-hand walls of the auditorium. She hurriedly grabbed a carton of eggs, bell peppers, cinnamon, flour, milk, and a number of other ingredients Poppy couldn’t quite identify.

Once the chefs were busily preparing their ingredients for their pastries, Edward stepped onto the stage with his microphone. “Chef Sandy, what is your strategy for this morning?” he asked.

“Well, Edward,” Galvin began, “I’m just going to stay focused, keep all of my meals simple and delicious, and try not to sweat all over everything!”

Edward chuckled. “These lights do get hot, don’t they!”

“No, Edward, I think that’s just you,” Arnold commented.

“Yeah,” Galvin continued, “but, you know, sweat adds that salty flavor.” A wave of tee-hees and titters surged through the crowd in response to Galvin’s absurd comment.

“I don’t know about that!” Edward said. “Judges, what do you think about Galvin’s statement? Is sweat a good way to flavor food?” He jumped from the stage, directing the microphone in the direction of the first judge.

“You know, Edward,” said the woman, “I’m always a fan of food that tastes like a lot of sweat and blood has gone into it.”

“There you have it, folks! Judge Marie not only likes her food to taste of perspiration, she also likes it to taste of blood!” Edward remarked.
As the round went on, the commentary between Edward, the chefs, and the judges continued to amuse the audience. What surprised Poppy, though, was the fact that Edward wasn’t clueing the crowd in on what the chefs were preparing for the judges.

As the round neared its halfway mark, Edward acknowledged this point. “So, I’m sure you folks must be dying to know what the chefs are preparing. Well… too bad! It’s up to you audience members to guess what it is each chef is preparing. Remember, the chefs must create a savory pastry and a sweet pastry inspired by the meal of breakfast.” Edward went on to urge the audience members to look beneath their seats.
Poppy found a paper ballot as well as a pen. On this ballot, the audience members were instructed to write their guesses. They were then to place their ballot in a cooking pot, rolled in on a cart and placed to the left of the room.

“Write your name, your guess for each chef’s meal, and the time of your guess on the ballot,” Edward explained. “During the halfway point, the ballots will be observed by the chefs and the audience member who guessed the correct answer the soonest will win a VIP pass to meet Chef Sandy and Chef Devereux after the competition.”

Arnold elbowed Poppy. “You’re totally gonna win this!” he said, and Poppy’s heart fluttered. She did have a pretty good guess as to what the chefs were making. The pastry dough Galvin was shaping into shells looked like a crust for a quiche. She also saw Nadine boiling oil over the stove, which most definitely could be used to fry donuts. As for Pierre, he always stuck to French cuisine, which narrowed the options down considerably. She scrawled her guesses on the ballot and took both her and Arnold’s slips to the pot.

“What did you guess?” she asked Arnold, as she returned to her spot.
Arnold shrugged. “Oh, I had no idea. I just wrote ‘I love you Edward,’ along with my phone number.”

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“A Deadly Bake-off” is an Amazon Best-Selling novel, check it out here!

Poppy dreams of making a business out of her amazing pastry skills, but she can’t seem to muster up the money or the confidence to follow these dreams, while working for a restaurant she hates. In an unexpected positive twist though, she manages to attend an exclusive bake-off event happening in the heart of the small town of Plumsville. Poppy can barely control her enthusiasm as she will finally witness her idol of a chef, Galvin Sandy, cooking in the competition. While she is having the time of her life with her friend Arnold at the event, something horrifying occurs: one of the judges suddenly drops dead after being poisoned by Galvin’s food.

Everyone is utterly shocked and the police believe Galvin is the murderer, but Poppy is certain that her role model can’t have such a malevolent heart. Poppy and Arnold decide to take justice in their own hands and further investigate the judge’s death in an agonizing effort to expose the real murderer. Things start not looking good for Galvin, as more evidence builds up against him, but Poppy is determined to shine light upon the hidden truth regardless of how dangerous or challenging this may prove. Just how prepared will she be though for putting herself into highly risky situations in order to prove her idol’s innocence?

Along with the pressure to help her hero, Poppy is forced to face off with her horrid ex, as well as her demeaning manager. She will have to swim through endless waves of confusing suspicion, worrying self-doubt and threatening presences to reach her end-goal.Will Poppy be able to summon the courage to seek out her life goals and free the man she’s looked up to like a father? Or will the real murderer manage to escape and incriminate someone innocent as a scapegoat?

“A Deadly Bake-off” is an intriguing cozy mystery novel of approximately 60,000 words. No cliffhangers, just pure captivating mystery.

Get your copy from Amazon!